We address to you with the request for help in connection with the fact that in Belarusian higher education establishments students are now being expelled for their participation in the rally [against electoral fraud] on December 19th [in Minsk]. More than 600 people, many of them young people, have been sentenced to imprisonment for 10-15 days and are now in police custody. The trials that they had to go through right after the events on December 19th had nothing to do with justice. Their expulsion from educational institutions is being implemented in absentia: the students themselves are not present for the expulsion proceedings.

In this connection, we ask you to do the following: to send to the Minister of Education of Belarus, Mr. Alexander Radkov, letters or statements about the inadmissibility of the practice of expelling students at Belarusan educational institutions, as well as that of dismissing university instructors, in connection with their participation in the peaceful protest actions. We will be grateful if you spread this request among your contacts in the academic community and the universities of your country.